Cameron Peron is VP Marketing at Newvem

When was the last time you went to a tradeshow?

How did you measure the impact that the event had on your business or personal goals?  Attending tradeshows is more than just cruising the aisles and looking and exhibitor booths. Understanding the inherent mechanics of trade shows, executing a well-defined game plan, and measuring the results in your professional life can make the difference between a useless visit and a game changing trip.

And, of course, going to interesting shows and great places more and more often.

Attending a trade show is an investment

We exhibited at AWS re:Invent in November 2012, making a major investment to meet Amazon Web Services (AWS) users in order to help them improve and optimize their cloud infrastructure.

For an attendee the ticket price cost $1,000 just to set foot in the door. Put airfare, hotel room, and a decent expense budget into the picture and an attendee could easily spend $4,000 – $5,000.  For a show attendee justifying an investment like this, both in terms of hard cash and time, is hard if not impossible to achieve.  Especially when managers and other staff see an empty desk for a few days.

Or is it?

Break down the expectations from the event and consider an active game plan (both during and after the event) to measure the time and money ROI the event cloud potentially deliver. Let’s take a closer look.

There are two main areas that a trade show can show a valuable impact on the company: knowledge and deals.

Gaining knowledge

Many tradeshows offer breakout sessions to learn from experts in a specific field of work, industry or vertical.  Think of an accelerated course to capture knowledge that could improve your ability to solve specific issues, learn best practices, and improve workflow analysis and overcoming issues as they come along.

But breakouts are not limited to your direct line of work.

For example if you’re on the sales and marketing side, attending breakout sessions of an IT, cloud, or IT operations event can help improve your knowledge of the everyday flow your customers and prospect are experience. Leveraging this knowledge cloud have a direct impact on your day to day operations (e.g., improving cloud availability for DevOps) or give you added insights on how to engage your customer base (e.g., understanding what factors are important for DevOps to address when improving availability).

Deals, deals, deals

The objective here is to show measurable value in starting new deal flow, accelerating conversions in the pipe, and improving value from existing business. There are a few methodologies to include in your in-event game plan to ensure you allocate the optimal amount of focused time:

• Reach out to everyone related in your industry and start booking meetings
  Take an assertive approach and book 15-30 min time slots based on the objective you want to achieve.  Don’t stop until you get an answer.Total time investment: 50%
• Book sessions with exhibitors in advance
  This is important. Randomly cruising show floor booths is not a preferred strategy unless you’re open to discuss partnerships. Consider that each booth potentially represents months of planning and budget negotiation, meaning that each staff member at the booth is focused on building new business themselves.   Booking time in advance will ensure a decent amount time to carry out your main objective rather than randomly pulling someone out of their booth.Total time investment: 40%
• Cruise the show to understand the landscape.
  Some of your time must be invested in cruising the show to better understand the landscape, identifying potential partners, keeping tabs on competitors (both future and current), and staying in touch with associates.Total time investment: 10%

Understanding the underlying mechanics of a trade show and putting the right game plan to harvest the value at the show — and execute when you return to the office — can help you win budget each and every time you hit a new show.

Cameron Peron is VP Marketing at Newvem, a cloud operations optimization service designed for Windows  Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud users. Offering a business view into a company’s public cloud operations, Newvem actively tracks cloud health in order to help reveal and solve cloud irregularities related to cost, security, utilization and availability.  Follow Cameron at @cameronperon.

photo credit: fidelramos via photopin cc

Lending Club shuffles around shareholders to make room for Google

Google has taken a minority stake worth in online investment community Lending Club. The deal was part of a $125 million secondary transaction where existing investors sold portions of their shares to new investor Google and previous investor Foundation Capital. No new money is going into the company, rather it is a reshuffling of equity to allow room for Google on the board. Lending Club is now valued at $1.55 billion, which represents a threefold increase in 12 months. Read more on VentureBeat.

SJF Ventures hits a triple with its third fund

Venture capital firm SJF Ventures closed its third fund with more than $90 million in capital, which is more than three times the size of its previous $28 million fund. SJF Ventures investments focus in clean tech, sustainability, and tech-enhanced services sectors. It has 36 portfolio companies. Investors in this fund include banks, insurance, and financial services firms as well as endowments, mutual and pension funds, and others. SJF Ventures is based in Durham, North Carolina. Read the press release.

Cintrifuse closes $51 million to spur innovation in Ohio 

Cincinatti-based fund Cintrifuse has added investors to its “fund of funds,” which has now closed at $51 million. Cintrifuse supports both regional and national early-stage venture capital funds with a focus on life sciences, consumer goods and services, technology, and energy. Participants said in a statement the Greater Cincinnati is ripe for growth and this fund will go towards growing its innovation ecosystem.

Twentysomething forms New York City’s newest VC firm

Venture capitalist Mike Brown has formed an independent fund of $33 million to support early-stage startups that work in the marketing and technology layer of large enterprise. According to a report in CNN, Brown expects the fund to back 25 companies in seed and Series A rounds of between $250,000 and $3 million. Brown started out working for Virgin Group and then cofounded AOL Ventures. His firm is called Bowery Capital and is based in New York City. Partners include members of AOL Ventures portfolio companies, including the founders/CEOs of Sailthru, CodeAcademy, and Premise Data. Read more on CNN.

DocuTAP taps into $11.9M to save lives using software

DocuTAP has raised $11.9 million from Bessemer Venture Partners to help urgent care clinics digitalize their operations to make them more efficient and less reliant on paper. The software integrates electronic health records (EHR) and “practice management” technology so all the information and tools needed to operate an efficient practice is one place. The company was founded in 2000 and this marks its second round of funding. Bluff Point Associates led the first round of $12 million in March 2012. This financing will be used to increase market presence, accelerate sales, and continue to improve the products. It’s based in Sioux Falls, S.D. Read more on VentureBeat.

Poppin raises $11.1M in new funding 

The New York-based e-tailer of office furniture and workstyle products Poppin today announced 11.1 million in Series B financing, taking the total funding to $17.1 million. The round is led by TrilogyGrowth, with participation from Shasta Ventures, First Round Capital and Poppin’s founder, J. Christopher Burch. Poppin aspires to make buying and browsing office products an “extraordinary experience.” Clients include Fab.com, Kate Spade, LinkedIn, and Pandora. With the new investment, the company plans to expand its product offering with a focus on growing its furniture collection. Read more on VentureBeat.

Mobile app-building platform FeedHenry raises $9M

FeedHenry is yet another company that wants to help “the modern developer” quickly build mobile apps for iOS, Android, and mobile web. But it’s such a profitable, popular space that even in a crowded market, this startup secured a healthy $9 million round of investment capital. Today’s funding was led by Intel Capital with participation from existing investors Kernel Capital, VMware, Enterprise Ireland, and new investor ACT Venture Capital. A previous seed round of around $1 million or less took place in mid-2011. FeedHenry is based in Waterford, Ireland, with offices in Burlington, Mass. Read more on VentureBeat.

Pure Energies Group ramp up with $6M of pure capital

Pure Energies Group received $6 million in funding from NEA and NGEN for its approach to residential solar technology. PEG advises homeowners on adopting the solar energy system that works best for them. The company helps them navigate the confusing world of power purchase and lease agreements as well as prepay options and escalation tables, and it partners with major solar suppliers for installation. PEG recently made two acquisitions that helped gain traction in local markets and the financing will support continued expansion. It is based in Toronto, Ontario.

Investors drop $2.3 into Dropico

Dropico Mobile has raised $2.3 million for its product MasterFX, an iPhoto application that combines “the fun and ease of Instagram” with “the power of photoshop.” MasterFX offers photo editing tools that go beyond filters, but is easier to use than more sophisticated photo-editing tools. The app is free and has over 1,500 photo elements, effects, characters, and brushes. Angel investors comprised this initial round for Dropico, which is based in Herzliya, Israel.

Joytunes sings to the tune of $1.5M in funding

JoyTunes is the “Rosetta Stone” of music education. The application combines new media, gamification, and audio technology to make practicing an acoustic instrument feel like a game. Its first two games, Piano Dust Buster and Piano Mania, are designed to make piano playing more fun and engaging, and therefore encourage more playtime. Genesis Partners led this round, with participation from Founder Collective, Kaedan Capital, and angel investors. JoyTunes is based in Israel.

SocialWire pulls in additional seeds and new CEO

Ad-tech startup SocialWire has added $1M onto its seed round, according to a report in TechCrunch. SocialWire’s technology is supposed to “make Facebook ads work” by helping online retailers leverage customer data to automate advertising and target the right customers. Its recommendation engine for ads is designed to personalize the ads as effectively as possible. This extension follows the company’s $2 million seed round from November 2012. New investor SoftTech VC participated, as well as existing investors First Round Capital, 500 Startups, Accelerator Ventures and Joi Ito.

Photo Credit: grenada_turnier/Flickr

Bookshout! raises $6M to amplify authors’ digital voices

Reading is generally a quiet activity, but today Bookshout! is proclaiming that it has raised $6 million. Bookshout offers multiple tools to support reader engagement. On the consumer side, Bookshout has a social reading app where people can find books and connect with their friends and authors. On Bookshout’s platform suite, publishers, and authors can promote their content and deepen engagement with audiences. This is Bookshout’s second round of funding, and it’s significant for the North Texas investment community which the Dallas Morning News called “lackluster.” Read more on VentureBeat.

Startup gets $5M to boost employment in the developing world using phones

Mobile recruitment startup Assured Labor has just raised $5.5 million to help spread its message of employment opportunities via cellphone communication throughout the world. The startup, which got its start at MIT’s MediaLab, focuses on helping people find jobs (and helping recruiters fill vacancies) in emerging markets through the power of simple mobile interfaces. Today’s funding was led by Capital Indigo with participation from existing investors Great Oaks Venture Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Kima Ventures, Enzyme Venture Capital, and others. Read more on VentureBeat.

Punky Brewster-turned-’momtrepeneur’ raises $2.5M to boost family creativity

TV actress Soleil Moon Frye of Punky Brewster fame is launching a mobile app, Moonfrye, backed by $2.5 million in venture capital. Moonfrye will feature kid-friendly project ideas and connects parents with the materials needed to execute them. The mobile app builds off the website, which features arts-and-crafts project ideas in a Pinterest-style format. The details of the commerce-focused business model have not yet been disclosed. RP Partners led this seed round, with participation from Greycroft, Daher Capital and Google Ventures. Advisors inlude Dan Rosensweig, Tim Ferriss, Randi Zuckerberg, Gina Bianchini, Erik Lammerding and Rick Marini. Read more on VentureBeat.

KelDoc, the ‘French ZocDoc,’ scores €700K from Alven Capital

KelDoc, a young French startup that books doctor and dentist appointments online, has just nabbed €700,000 ($913,010) in funding from Alven Capital. KelDoc co-founder Eduardo Ronzano told VentureBeat that the average waiting time to see a doctor in France is between one week and six months. This has led to a substantial rise in people searching for information online about other doctors in the area and trying to book appointments faster. The funding will go toward hiring new members for its sales and technical teams to help it expand more quickly. Read more on VentureBeat.

Photo credit: Mark and Allegra/Flickr

Silver Lake’s $10.3B fund is makes millions seems like ponds

Private equity firm Silver Lake has pooled together $10.3 billion (that’s right, billion) to focus on technology buyouts. According to Reuters, a majority of investors in Silver Lake IV are based outside the United States, with a significant amount from Asia and the Middle East. The fund is the largest ever pool dedicated to technology buyouts, Silver Lake said in a statement. Silver Lake is known as the parter of Michael Dell in a $24.4 billion deal and as an investor in Skype and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. The previous fund Silver Lake Partners II closed at $9.3 billion in 2007 and was valued at 1.37 times the amount investors put into it.

Smart grid startup Enlighted lights up with $20M in new funds

Smart electricity and lighting startup Enlighted has raised $20 million in new funds to expand and bring its smart sensor tech that cuts electric use to many more companies. Enlighted’s sensor tech and software now covers more than 10 million square feet of commercial real estate, which is double the space it covered just five months ago. The company claims more than 55 Fortune 1000 companies have reduced lighting energy costs by 50 to 75 percent using its products. Customers include Google, LinkedIn, Turner Broadcasting, and Bank of New York. The new funding round was led by new investor RockPort Capital, with participation by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Intel Capital, and DFJ JAIC. Including the new funding, Enlighted has raised $35.4 million to date. Read more on VentureBeat.

Netronome keeps things flowing with $19M for flow processing

Netronome has raised $19 million in its fifth round of funding to accelerate research and development for its flow processing technology. Flow processing keeps traffic through a network running smoothly. With increasing numbers of users and activity, many enterprise companies need greater support for their applications. Flow processing means that an application can keep an active state on every conversation from start to finish, as opposed to packet-by-packet processing. Sourcefire, Intel Capital, DFJ Esprit, and The Raptor Group participated in this round. Read more on VentureBeat.

Kaazing! ‘Living web’ startup pulls $15M from investor hats

Kaazing enables the “living web,” which it describes as the “dynamic, interactive online world populated by applications that are always on, always connected, and always real time.” With the proliferation of mobile devices and the rise of Bring-Your-Own-Device culture, enterprise organizations have a growing need to build and adapt applications that work effectively across multiple channels. To fuel the company’s growth, Kaazing raised $15 million from New Enerprise Associaes and Columbus Technology Partners as well as existing investors. It brings the company’s total capital raised to $39 million. Read more on VentureBeat.

mBlox stacks up $14M in loans

Mobile messaging company mBlox closed $14 milliion in venture loans from NXT Capital Finance to fund strategic growth initiatives. mBox’s global network reaches more than 800 mobile operators and 5.8 billion devices. The company’s solutions help brands, agencies, and enterprises engage with their consumers on mobile devices, enabling things like interactive text message campaigns and push notifications. mBlox’ venture backers include Norwest Venture Partners, Scale Venture Partners, and Trident Capital.

Guavus ripens up with an additional $9M

Big data company Guavus has raised an additional $9 million from Goldman Sachs and TransLink. Guavus provides “holistic” big data analytics solutions for telecommunications companies. The Guavus Reflex platform and analytics applications provide data-based insights that can inform decisions surrounding network operations, marketing, customer care and monetization. Clients include two of the top three mobile operators and backbone carriers in the US.  This brings the total capital raised to $87M. Read more on VentureBeat.

‘Virtual fitting room’ startup shows off $7.64M

Fits.me has closed its first round of institutional funding for software that sets up virtual fitting rooms for online clothing retailers. Fits.me tries to improve conversion rates and lower for e-commerce companies by taking some of the guesswork out of online shopping. The London-based company also provides analytics. Existing investors SmartCap invested in this round, with new investors Conor Venture Partners, Fostergate Holdings Limited, and The Entrepreneur’s Fund. Clients include Adidas, Ermenegildo Zegna, Hugo Boss, and Thomas Pink.

Yodo1 builds $5M bridge between Western game developers and China

Beijing-based mobile gaming platform Yodo1 has raised $5 million from Singapore firm SingTel Innov8 to support further expansion into China. Yodo1 helps Western developers distribute their games in the Chinese market by handling localization, publishing, promotion, and even protecting partners’ IP from copycats and piracy. The Chinese market for gaming is huge and Yodo1 raised this additional funding continue growing. Read more on VentureBeat. 

Connected home platform raises $3.8M to power your smart house

Zonoff, which provides home automation software solutions, raised $3.8 million in venture capital funding from Valhalla Partners and Grotech Ventures. Founded in 2011, Zonoff can enable smart devices, like HDTVs, Blu-ray players, wireless routers, and thermostats, present in your home to work seamlessly together and communicate with one other. Its core technology brings together a wide range of such devices available on the market in a single system. You can control everything with one app instead of using multiple apps to run different systems in the home. Read more on VentureBeat.

GoCardless won’t go capital-less with $3.3M

GoCardless has raised its first round of funding to help businesses do exactly that. This Y Combinator startup offers “next generation direct debit,” enabling businesses to quickly and easily set up automatic and recurring payments online. The technology is geared towards interbank transfers, or ACH, in cases where credit card payments are not ideal. GoCardless is based in London. This round was led by Accel Partners and Passion Capital, and brings the total amount to $4.8 million.

Photo Credit: Joannaverdan/Flickr

Funding for digital health startups skyrocketed in the first quarter of 2013, according to a report released today.

Companies in the health care IT space raised almost half a billion dollars (approximately $493 million) in a single quarter. A report from Mercom Capital Group, a global consulting firm, found that 104 startups received funding this quarter compared to 51 in the previous quarter. Many of the early-stage deals were fueled by health accelerators, which have popped up in recent years, including HealthBox and Rock Health.

A recent shift is that the majority of the startups that received funding are marketed to consumers rather than practices, and these include telehealth, mobile health, and scheduling apps for patients.

This trend in favor of consumer health technologies has proliferated despite the increasing interest in electronic health records (EHRs), which doctors are being pushed to adopt by 2015 — or risk paying penalties.

“The enormous market opportunity in consumer-focused health has appeared to pique the interest of investors and is likely to continue to grow as witnessed by the surge in VC activity,” said Raj Prabhu, the CEO of Mercom Capital Group.

While investment in health IT continued at a “torrid pace,” Prabhu’s research team found that mergers and acquisitions remained steady. There were 46 in the health IT space, which is on par with the previous quarter.

The top five health deals of the quarter?

• Health Catalyst for a $41 series B round .
• xG Health Solutions for a $40 million round.
• NantHealth for a $31 million round.
• Fitbit for a $30 million round (although this was reported as an intent to raise).
• One Medical Group for a $30 million series F round .

For more in-depth research, which projects a record year for digital health, check out Rock Health’s report.

Investment in health IT is one of the key themes that will be discussed at HealthBeat, VentureBeat’s upcoming health conference. 

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HealthBeat 2013 is a new conference showcasing how technology is transforming health care. We'll explore how IT is driving out inefficiencies on the hospital, practice, and patient levels. Check out full event details here, and register here.

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Foursquare raises $41M as it doubles-down on search and ad ops

Foursquare announced today that it has raised $41 million in a fourth round of funding led by private equity firm Silver Lake Partners. With the additional funds, Foursquare has time to actually build up its business by focusing more on ad operations, sales, and local search features. Most of the investment is in the form of a multi-year loan from Silver Lake, while the rest is made up of convertible debt from VC firms including Union Square Ventures and Andreesseen Horowitz. Read more on VentureBeat.

Pharma startup gets $30M for genetic cancer treatments

Syros Pharmaceuticals, a company that aims to revolutionize the treatment of cancer and other diseases, announced today it received $30 million in financing from Flagship Ventures and ARCH Venture Partners. Syros Pharmaceuticals integrates gene control research and drug discovery with disease biology and genomic data. This is the company’s first round of institutional funding, making the $30 million figure even more remarkable. The capital will be used to fast-track discovery and development of gene control medicines. Read more on VentureBeat.

Health accelerator gets $16M to find cures for rare diseases 

Venture firm New Enterprise Associates hopes to find new cures for rare diseases with its latest investment. Today, the Silicon Valley firm led a $16 million round in Cydan, an accelerator program for ideas, research, and strategic partnerships that would find cures for rare diseases. Cydan specializes in accelerating the commercialization of so-called “orphan drugs” designed to treat these diseases. Pfizer Venture Investments and Alexandria Real Estate Equities also participated in the round.Read more on VentureBeat. 

Check out this learn-to-code platform just for kids

A new service called Tynker launched today to help younger children learn how to code. Its core philosophy is that elementary school-aged children should understand the basics of how computers work and how they’re programmed. The startup launched today with a sizable ~$3 million in seed funding from 500 Startups, NEA, Felicis Ventures, and a slew of other angels and institutions. Read more on VentureBeat.  

Sticky gets $3M to track your eyeballs

Sticky is a startup that’s all about tracking your eye movements while you’re online to determine which ads you like (or ignore). Using this data, the company can tell advertisers whether anyone actually sees those annoying banner ads floating around the web and just how much it costs to get anyone’s real, legitimate attention online these days. The company has just announced a $3 million round of funding, its second institutional infusion of cash. The funding comes from Euro-firm Northzone and Conor Venture Partners, a VC firm based in Finland.

Rackware racks up $1.8M to make enterprise clouds better, faster, strong, better 

RackWare is a cloud startup that has raised $1.8 million in its first round of funding. RackWare has developed a series of enterprise solutions to bring “intelligence and automation to the cloud.” The RackWare Management Module (RMM) helps businesses scale across private, public, or hybrid cloud environments, without changing applications. This $1.8 million is part of an intended $2.67 million, according to an SEC filing. . The investors are undisclosed, although VentureBeat has reached out to RackWare for comment. Read more on VentureBeat.

LevelEleven lands another $500K to gamify sales and CRM

Enterprise gamification startup LevelEleven has raised $500,000 in new seed funds to motivate sales people around the world. Detroit-based LevelEleven offers software that makes sales and selling a game. The company’s flagship product is ContestBuilder, which pushes sales people with a leaderboard, has them mark completed tasks, dangles potential rewards for the top sales people, and more. ContestBuilder is the most popular gamification app on the Salesforce AppExchange. LevelEleven raised $1 million back in October, bringing its total seed funding to $1.5 million. The seed funding was led by Detroit Venture Partners, with participation by Hyde Park Venture Partners, The First Step Fund, and private equity investor Rick Inatome. Read more on VentureBeat.

OpenCoin raises seed round so ‘anyone in the world can trade any amount of money in any currency’

OpenCoin is a startup building a simple, global, open currency system. Today, the company announced it has an angel round of funding to expand the Ripple protocol, a virtual currency and payments system that allows “anyone in the world to trade any amount of money in any currency.” Ripples are a virtual currency. The Ripple network is a decentralized, open source, peer-to-peer payment network that enables free payments to merchants, consumers, and developers in any currency. Andreessen Horowitz, FF Angel IV, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Vast Ventures, and Bitcoin Opportunity Fund participated in this round. Read more on VentureBeat.

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IBM sees a substantial future in Flash storage, announcing plans for a $1 billion investment in Flash research and development.

The surge in data use from smartphones and tablets has taken its toll on corporate servers. IBM sees a solution in Flash memory, which has the potential to process the data faster, more reliably, and with less energy than a hard disk drive full of moving parts. IBM’s investment will go toward designing and building servers, storage systems, and middleware that better integrate Flash storage.

“The economics and performance of Flash are at a point where the technology can have a revolutionary impact on enterprises, especially for transaction-intensive applications,” IBM systems & technology group general manager Ambuj Goyal said. “The confluence of ‘big data,’ social, mobile, and cloud technologies is creating an environment in the enterprise that demands faster, more efficient, access to business insights, and Flash can provide that access quickly.”

Along with investing in future Flash-based hardware, IBM announced that its new FlashSystem line of appliances are available to businesses. Based on technology acquired from Texas Memory Systems, the FlashSystem line only uses Flash memory, which according to IBM enables it to be 20 times faster than a standard spinning hard drive and store up to 24 terabytes of data.

It also boasts an energy reduction of up to 85 percent for business analytics applications, or up to 80 percent in cloud-based data centers.

Sprint Nextel is one of the first companies to adopt IBM’s Flash-based vision, cutting a deal to install nine of these storage systems at its data center.

To help convince other companies to jump on board, IBM is establishing 12 of what it calls Centers of Competency around the world, places where potential clients can run tests using IBM’s Flash servers to see how they handle the data. Centers of Competency are being built and will be up and running by the end of 2013 in China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Singapore, South America, the U.K., and the U.S.

Google Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Andreessen Horowitz are creating a new program to fund startups that want to make apps for Google Glass. It’s called Glass Collective, and it’s a huge opportunity for developers willing to work on a barely-alpha piece of hardware.

When entrepreneurs with a Glass-y idea get a chance to pitch any one of the firms, they’ll actually end up pitching to all three of them. And if one firm decides to invest, it’s highly likely that all three VC funds will get in on the deal.

It’s not a new fund, but it is a distinct drive for three of Silicon Valley’s biggest names and deepest pockets to accelerate the Google Glass ecosystem, all while giving those startups the best possible access to Glass itself.

In a phone call today with Google Ventures partner Bill Maris and Kleiner Perkins general partner John Doerr, VentureBeat learned about the specifics of the partnership and the kinds of apps these VCs are trying to find.

“It’s the best team to go to build a great Glass business,” said Doerr, emphasizing that the startups funded through this partnership will have unparalleled access to the Google X team that actually designs and makes Google Glass. And that team, said Maris, is “extremely supportive” of the new program to fund Glass apps.

As for the kinds of applications the VCs want to find and fund, both partners had a few concrete ideas, both for lightweight consumer fare and meatier enterprise applications.

“Photos are, for me, kind of the killer app,” said Maris. “You get point-of-view, very candid photos that are very different than you’d take with a regular camera.”

RELATED: Google Glass: The Basics

On the more serious side of the ecosystem, Maris said, “If you’re a paraplegic, it’s not as easy as it should be to send a text or an email. And Google Glass can make that really easy. I think that could be really important. … And I used to work at a neurobiology lab, and scientists are excited about being able to interact with their experiments without having to remove layers of gloves.”

Doerr also said he’s particularly interested in Glass applications in medicine. “All kinds of tasks in enterprise and business are done so much better hands-free, but the ones that are most attractive to me are in health care,” he said. “It’s so screwed up. But you can imagine all the knowledge workers in a hospital having Glass and making better decisions.”

Also, Doerr said, he’ll be keeping an eye out for Glass apps for the classroom. “I’m quite curious about what will happen with education. I can’t wait to take a pair to [Khan Academy founder] Sal Khan and see what he can do.”

Ultimately, however, both Doerr and Maris admitted that as VCs, they’re at the shallow end of the creativity pool; they’ll be waiting to see what entrepreneurs can dream up and won’t be holding too many expectations in the meantime.

“This platform is so new, so early, and so unlike anything we’ve seen before that it’s impossible to make any predictions,” said Doerr.

RELATED: How to build apps for Google Glass [VIDEO]

Both VCs said they have no problem with funding competing applications, even apps that compete with Google Glass’s built-in apps. Since Glass isn’t available to consumers yet, they said they’re not expecting companies to come in with revenue and users — or even highly evolved plans for revenue.

“When the transistor radio was invented, people wondered who in the world would want one of those,” said Maris. “Most of these things — Google, YouTube — don’t start out looking for a commercial market. If it makes people’s lives better, there will be a commercial market, but it often doesn’t start that way. At Google Ventures, we don’t talk about the mcompercial application, we talk about the team. … Going from seed to large companies is an unpredictable path, and if you tie yourself to a commercial outcome early on, it’s often the wrong thing.”

Doerr concurred, adding, “If we come across the Khan Academy of Google Glass and they’re really resolved to be nonprofit, that’s not our business, but we’ll find them someone who can fund them.”

Ultimately, said Maris, the partnership between the three firms seeks to capitalize on what could end up being Google’s next big ecosystem after Chrome and Android, creating and exploiting (in a good way) opportunities that arise from the technology now still under development.

“After working with the Glass team and seeing how quickly that team came together, projecting out what it’s going to be, it became obvious to me there’s an opportunity to create a platform,” he said. “Google has what it takes to invest in this.”

Doerr said he first had the chance to use Glass almost two years ago. “In comparison to a smartphone, which puts the web in your pocket, this puts the web right before your eyes. And the interface isn’t touch, it’s voice. … It’s like magic, and we can’t wait to see what brilliant things entrepreneurs do with this.”

Image credit: maxbraun/Flickr

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Accel’s massive new $475M fund is all about startups in Europe & Israel

It’s a good day for European and Israeli startups seeking funding, as Accel Partners announced a new $475 million fund today for early-stage tech companies. The new fund, Accel London IV, was raised in just eight weeks and makes Accel London one of the largest venture capital firms in the region, with $2 billion raised to date across its previous funds. The new fund’s total is more than what was initially rumored back in February, as VentureBeat previously reported. Read more on VentureBeat.

Social marketing startup Dachis Group closes $7.5M funding round

Dachis Group, a social marketing software company, has announced a $7.5 million round of funding. The startup combines a few disciplines: social marketing, social analytics, and big data. The company’s products can track brand advocates’ social media impact, employee’s online activities, online marketing campaigns, and overall brand social performance, allowing clients to optimize accordingly and — with any luck or skill — profit. Previously, the startup took a huge $30 million round from Austin Ventures in 2011. Austin Ventures was also responsible for the current round, which is Dachis’ Group’s third infusion of institutional funding. Read more on VentureBeat.

ClearFit reigns in $7M for builders, servers, chefs and more

ClearFit, which has developed a solution for human resources and recruiting, announced the close of a $7 million round of funding. ClearFit’s software helps businesses in the construction, retail, restaurant, hospitality, and franchise industries find job candidates and uses data analysis to predict employment success. GrandBanks Capital and Relay funding led this firs ground of institutional funding. ClearFit is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario.

Tapad taps into $6.5 million 

Of all the unified cross-device advertising solutions out there, Tapad claims to be the leading one. This startup, which works with more than 75 brands of Fortune 500 companies, secured $6.5 million in its second round of funding after significant revenue growth in 2012. The funding, led by Firsthand Technology Value Fund and with participation from FirstMark Capital and Avalon Ventures will be used to “maintain Tapad’s pace of growth in the U.S.” Read the press release. 

Video marketing startup Vidyard gets a $6M first round of funding

Vidyard, a video marketing startup, has just announced its first institutional round of funding. The cash, which amounts to a healthy $6 million, comes to the Toronto-based company from OMERS Ventures, which led the round. The funding also saw participation from previous investors iNovia Capital and SoftTech VC (Jeff Clavier’s firm). The Vidyard platform gives marketers tools for analyzing and optimizing video marketing for lead generation, customer conversion, and good ol’ ROI (that’s return on investment). Read more on VentureBeat.

Japanese high-class groupons bring in $5.3M 

Daily deals sites often target the economically-minded consumer. Luxa, however, is a Tokyo-based startup that offers coupons and discount on more expensive, higher-quality products, like fancy restaurants and food products, premium sake, spa treatments and cosmetics. Japanese venture capital firm JAFCO led this round, following up to the $5.3 million it invested in Luxa in August of 2010.

Glide glides into seven figure of funding

Israeli video messaging startup Glide launched today and announced that it is backed by a “seven-figure” sum from venture capitalists and private investors. Glide’s real-time video streaming technology enables live video chats between friends without uploading/downloading time. Messages are saved to the cloud and can be played back later. Invesotrs include Orey Gillam and Philippe Schwartz. Read the press release.  

Import.io imports funding, along with big data 

UK big data startup Import.io has pulled in $900K in seed financing from Wellington Partners to expand and develop its platform. The technology seeks to turn the web into a database by harnessing trapped data. Import.io “lets companies, developers, and cores extract, connect and fuse disparate sources of data from the web to let them build and create powerful new data sets and applications.” Alta Vista founder Louis Monier and French investor Emmanuel Javal also contributed.

Investors place bets with Vegas startup to take on Ustream

Livestreaming company iStreamPlanet raised its first round of funding today, though the company is not disclosing the amount. iStreamPlanet competes with companies like Ustream and Livestream, though the company focuses on delivering live video to different device types at one time. The round comes from Juniper Networks’ Junos Innovation Funding and will be used to build out the product line. iStreamPlanet was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Las Vegas.

Tapjoy starts fund to invest in Australian developers

Tapjoy, the mobile advertising and publishing platform, has announced it will invest in Australian app developers. The San Francisco company has created its Tapjoy Australia Fund and made its first investment in a game studio called Defiant Development. Tapjoy, whose platform is used in 97,000 apps, plans to invest in iOS and Android developers and give them marketing and distribution support and money. Read more on VentureBeat.

Photo Credit: jmv/Flickr

This online investment manager announced today that it raised $20 million from top tier investors. Mike Volpi of Index Ventures led the round, joined by Chamath Palihapitiya of The Social + Capital Partnership and Reid Hoffman of Greylock Partners.

Wealthfront’s platform helps clients build and manage a diverse investment portfolio, rather than paying for an investment bank or private wealth manager. You put in the account type, amount to invest, and age, and this SEC-registered, software-based financial advisor will provide professional financial advise at a lower cost. The service also manages the personalized online investment account for you.

Wealthfront is unique among financial services companies in that we derive our value from our underlying software,” said COO Adam Nash in a blog post.  Our core is our engineering-centric culture, which means we will leverage our new financing to significantly grow our product and engineering team.”

The company is built on the idea that ‘everyone deserves sophisticated investment advice.’ It launched in 2011 and has since added features like automatic rebalancing, continuous tax-loss harvesting, differentiated asset location and broadened the set of diversified assets classes. Within a year, Wealthfront brought in over $170 million under management and those assets have grown by more than seventy percent.

This second round of funding will help Wealthfront continue to grow and disrupt “an industry that manages trillions of dollars.” In addition to the investors listed above, lead investor of the first round DAG Ventures participated along with notable individuals. It will go towards product development and enhancing to add features without adding to client fees, as well as to expand the team.

Right now, Wealthfront does not charge on advisory fee on the first $10,000 invested, a charges a monthly advisory fee based on an annual fee rate of .25 percent after that. Wealthfront is based in Palo Alto, California. This brings its total funding to $30.5 million.

Photo Credit: Willem van Bergen/Flickr

Today, the firm announced it’s led a $6 million round of funding for the startup. The deal also saw participation from DN Capital, Piton Capital, and Generis Capital. In addition to fueling the site’s expansion in its original marketplace in France, the Videdressing team is hoping to use the cash to push into new, English-speaking markets.

Videdressing aims to offer great prices and discounts on a broad but expertly curated range of apparel and accessories. You can get alerts when your favorite items receive a price reduction that brings them into your budget. Around 70 percent of the site’s inventory is used, and it carries men’s, women’s, and children’s fashion.

The site also has magazine-like editorial content such as photo spreads, interviews, and hand-picked items from guest fashion curators. Videdressing tells us via email that the site’s full inventory includes around 400,000 items from more than 1,700 brands, and that catalog is growing by around 2,500 products per day.

Videdressing was founded in December 2009 by American Meryl Job and and Frenchman Renaud Guillerm. Before launching this site, Job previously worked as a product manager at Chanel.

Image credit: Videdressing

Brazil has been generating a significant amount of buzz in the venture capital and startup community recently, fueled in part by media coverage of several high profile firms “planting their flags” in the country with dedicated funds or investments. A growing awareness of the burgeoning Brazilian startup scene, and Brazil’s role as host in the upcoming World Cup and Olympics, has further elevated the country’s profile.

Is this hype justified? When discussing Brazil, comparisons to the evolution of China’s VC industry are commonplace. But what do the VCs investing in Brazilian startups really think? And how might Brazil’s VC ecosystem evolve over the next five to 10 years?

Our MBA team from the MIT Sloan School of Management recently concluded an in-depth study* of these topics sponsored by Sloan’s Global Entrepreneurship Lab program and Ideiasnet, a leading Brazilian venture capital firm.  We conducted extensive research via industry publications, online sources, and academic papers, interviewed over 20 VCs and ecosystem participants, and spent one month on-site exploring Brazil’s VC ecosystem first-hand.  Here is what we learned:

Long-term demographic & tech trends underpin investments

Brazil has a rapidly growing consumption-oriented middle class that now represents over half of the population. Approximately ~88 million users are currently online, and by 2016 broadband and 3G penetration are projected to increase by 32% and 103% respectively. Brazil’s internet users are also highly engaged: despite having only 46% of its’ population online, Brazil ranks number two worldwide in numbers of users of both Facebook and Twitter.

Put all these trends together and you get a very attractive addressable market for internet-enabled companies, with many categories yet to be claimed. While economic growth in Brazil has recently slowed, many of the VCs we spoke with believe these secular trends are sufficiently de-coupled from short-term, macro-economic cycles and that they will continue to drive the market growth necessary for startups to successfully scale.

Investors are changing & domestic GPs are sought after

While a handful of funds have been making technology investments since the 1990s, the emergence of a Brazilian VC ecosystem began in earnest only in the past several years with a significant increased activity in the last 18 to 24 months.

According to the Brazil Startup Dealbook, at least 50 firms made approximately 80 investments in startups in 2012, which marks a sharp increase over previous years.  Additionally, at least two Brazil-focused funds were formed representing ~$250M of assets under management.  (The list of firms active in Brazil is rapidly evolving, but for a good sense of the major players, we recommend checking out Joshua Kemp’s blog.)

While participants include both global-scale VCs opportunistically making investments out of global funds as well as a handful of U.S. and European VCs who have committed resources and/or dedicated funds on the ground, recent trends reveal the formation of a small but growing group of Brazilian VCs and super angels.  These local investors are often sought out as “river guides” by foreign VCs to navigate the local investment landscape and manage day-to-day contact with portfolio companies in syndicated deals. They are seen as irreplaceable complements to the sector experience and potential acquirer relationships of many global players, particularly in early-stage deals.

Focusing on fast-follow and proven business models — for now

Many of the high profile venture-backed startups in Brazil over the past few years have been consumer-oriented “fast follow” companies (e.g., Rocket Internet) capitalizing on proven business models customized for the Brazilian context, particularly e-commerce and marketplaces.

This focus made sense given the avidity of the market for these unclaimed categories and allowed the vanguard of investors to mitigate business model risk while taking on perceived “geographic risk”. However, as competitive intensity has increased many of these fast-follow sectors have become increasingly crowded and unattractive, with margins eroding and returns diminishing for investors.

As more investors become comfortable controlling for Brazil-specific risks by cutting their teeth in well-established categories, we predict a shift in focus towards uniquely Brazilian business models that may not have comparable analogs in developed markets and that will offer more defensible and lucrative investment opportunities.

The implication for aspiring entrepreneurs: Think about solving uniquely Brazilian pain points, or global pain points that have not yet been addressed.  If you are working on the “tropicalization” of a proven model, be aware the bar for funding viability is rising and that competitive intensity is making it more and more likely that only definitive category leaders will achieve exits in popular sectors.

A unique exit path

The main question on the minds of many VCs investing in Brazil is the exit path. There is limited precedent of successful exits in the country and, unlike China and India where deep(er) capital markets have provided reliable liquidity, the Brazilian BOVESPA market is seen as largely unattainable for small-cap tech startups.

This means current investors are placing their exit bets on strategic M&A, primarily driven by multi-national trade sales.  Most believe in a coming wave of such acquisition activity, and there is a lot riding on this belief.  A string of successful exits would serve as liquid fuel for the ecosystem – bolstering the gradual cultural embrace of entrepreneurship by top Brazilian talent, demonstrating returns and liquidity, and prompting more capital to enter the ecosystem.  On the other hand, a lack thereof would call the valuations of the current generation of portfolio companies into question, and the ecosystem would likely stagnate as capital stayed on the sidelines.

Tech in Brazil is tough, especially for outsiders

Before you quit your job or drop out of your prestigious university and pack your bags for Brazil, you should understand that conducting business here is not easy, especially for those unfamiliar with navigating the local context.

While the Brazilian government is a large and vocal supporter of venture capital, the traction gained by the current cohort of Brazilian tech companies and their investors has been achieved not because of the surrounding institutions and environment factors, but in spite of them.

Startups and VCs in Brazil face restrictive labor market rigidity, regulatory complexity, high taxes, and pervasive bureaucracy. Many of the VCs we spoke with felt that these structural frictions, combined with a potential “talent gap” due to a historical cultural aversion to entrepreneurship amongst top graduates (who tend to migrate towards consulting, banking, and oil and gas), make it difficult to rapidly scale businesses and manage the transition to growth-stage.

If these business environment frictions, including access to deep domestic capital markets, are not addressed, the likelihood of Brazil joining the ranks of global VC hotbeds is low.

So where does this put the future of the Brazil VC ecosystem in the next five to ten years?

Most investors we spoke with believe Brazil is in a state of fragile growth where a select group of strong businesses will emerge from the current ecosystem, capitalize on the secular technology and demographic trends to scale, and achieve exits via strategic mergers and acquisitions (or possibly international public offerings for outliers). While this will demonstrate the exit potential of the Brazilian VC market, local friction points and relatively shallow capital markets will hold Brazil back from achieving the VC industry growth profiles of China and India, and may ultimately cause investors to follow a more conservative approach towards committing capital to Brazil.

As for the authors of this study, we haven’t thrown out our Havaianas just yet — far from it. Despite the long-term uncertainty regarding the Brazilian VC ecosystem, we believe that there are big opportunities for both investors and entrepreneurs, especially beyond “fast-follow” business models. Those who can bring both relevant sector expertise as well as deep understanding of the local environment to bear will be positioned for some big wins.

* A copy of the final detailed report can be downloaded here.

Written by Hoolie Tejwani, R. Blaize Wallace, Nick Holda, and Sean Bonawitz. The authors are second-year MBA candidates at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Image credit: Shutterstock

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So Graham’s doing something about it.

From now on, Y Combinator companies will use a four-step protocol before assuming they have a handshake deal with an investor:

1. The investor indicates a desire to be in on a funding round at a certain valuation.
2. The startup agrees and verbally commits.
3. The startup sends the investor an email or text message asking for confirmation.
4. The investor replies and confirms.

The problem, Graham says, is that too many “handshake deals” are not really deals at all. Either an investor isn’t communicating clearly, or a founder is over-eager and reading too much into a very polite no, or something worse is happening. Investors who are new to the game — or simply dishonest — can cause startups huge issues:

The problem is compounded by the fact that some investors deliberately mislead startups about how interested they are in investing. Startups’ prospects can change rapidly. If investors say no in a way that sounds like yes, they can essentially take a free option to invest. They haven’t actually committed, so it costs them nothing, but if the startup turns out to be a hot one, they can retroactively claim that their almost-yes was an actual yes, and that the startup is morally obliged to let them invest.

The process that Graham outlines seems long and excessive, but he argues that with mobile phones, it can and should all happen in person, right away. The difference is that now there is a digital track that confirms what the founder hoped he or she heard and what the investor actually committed to.

But Graham didn’t just make these comments off-the-cuff. He checked with Valley super-angels and VCs Ron Conway, Ben Horowitz, Chris Dixon, Marc Andreesen, among others, before publishing.

photo credit: Leonard John Matthews via photopin cc

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Pathbrite lights up (again) with $4M in follow-on funding

Pathbrite closed $4 million in follow-on funding, bringing its total capital raised to $8 million. Pathbrite is an “education portfolio platform.” Students on Pathbrite create interactive portfolios with their professional and personal achievements. Educators use the technology to track student activity outside of “bubble tests” to create a more holistic view of their progress. Testing company ACT is leading the additional financing, with participation from ReThink Education, which led PathBrite’s initial round in June.

GoEuro gets going with $4M seed round

Travel company GoEuro has raised $4 million led by Battery Ventures and Jasso Plattner Ventures. This Berlin startup offers a “multimode” trail search platform for Europe that compares and combines all types of transportation, including air, rail, bus, and car rental office, providing a comparative view pricing and online booking. Figuring out how to get from point A to point B is not always easy while traveling, and Battery Ventures has made a number of investments in the travel space.

LockerDome opens to reveal funding, not smelly jerseys   

LockerDome is “a social media platform for your sports life.” Today, it announced that it has completed a $6 million round of financing. LockerDome has more than 1,500 “networks” of professional athletes, brands, media personalities, and other sports properties. Their published content attracts 10 million monthly unique visitors to LockerDome, who join and participate in interest-specific sporting communities. Cultivation Capital Growth Fund, which was founded by Square cofounder Jim McKelvey, led this round. Other participants include the St. Louis Cardinals president and part owner William DeWitt III and NHL player Chris Pronger (while he’s still a Philadelphia Flyer, he may never play again due to concussions). LockerDome is based in St. Louis. Read the press release.

PeopleMatter works hard for the money 

PeopleMatter, which provides a platform for human resources teams to manage hourly workers, has raised $19 million. PeopleMatter’s software has tools for hiring, tracking, training, scheduling, and so on, and it’s specifically designed for employers in the service-industry, like restaurants and hotels. Current clients include Ruby Tuesday, Brueggers, and franchise locations of chains like Domino’s and Taco Bell. Scale Venture Partners led this round, with Intersouth Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures, Harbert Venture Partners, Noro-Moseley Parnters, C&B Capital, and Silicon Valley Bank participating. PeopleMatter has raised $47 million to date.

For more funding news as it happens, subscribe to our Deals Channel feed. You can also follow VentureBeat on Twitter, @venturebeat, to view funding news as it’s published.

Windeln brings home the gold (in baby diapers)

Windeln.de is a German online retailer for baby products, and it has tucked away $19.6 million (€15 million). In 2012, the company developed faster than a healthy toddler, and this financing will support continued growth. Known as the Diapers.com of the German-speaking world, Windeln’s inventory includes includes more than 20,000 products from 300 companies. Existing investor DN Capital and new investor MCI led this funding round, with participation from Acton Capital Partners and 360 Capital. Read more on VentureBeat.

Thinkful’s custom code tutoring may help you land a jobRead more on VentureBeat.

Thinkful’s education platform provides students and recent graduates with one-on-one training  in high-demand, practical skills. Thinkful adopts the “apprenticeship” teaching model, whereby students work with qualified mentors and gain practical experience through projects. Today, the company announced that it received $1 million in seed financing from Peter Thiel, RRE Ventures, Quotidian Ventures and others. Founder Dan Friedman was selected as one of the first 20 Under 20 Thiel Fellows in 2011, and Thinkful marks the first investment Thiel has made in a Thiel Fellows company. Read more on VentureBeat.

Codenvy raises $9M to take code for a ride in the cloud

Investors are green with Codenvy. Today, the startup which provides a cloud-based environment to code, build, and test apps, announced that it closed $9 million in its first round of funding. Toba Capital led this $9 million round, with participation from Auriga Partners and a number of angel investors. Codenvy was formerly known as Exo IDE and is based in San Francisco. Read more on VentureBeat.

Splitsecnd calls for help when you can’t in a car crash

Splitsecnd is a crash detection and emergency response system. It works through a small piece of hardware that plugs into a car’s cigarette lighter. In the event of a collision, Splitsecnd automatically calls for help. The startup’s mission is to make heightened automobile safety accessible to people without smartphones or GPS systems, who aren’t driving luxury cars, and who may not be the most tech savvy. To support its expansion, Nashville-based Splitsecnd raised $2.1 million from Tennessee Community Ventures, the INCITE co-investment fund, the Jumpstart Foundry, and a private investor. Read more on VentureBeat.

EatStreet fills its belly with Midwestern money

Online ordering site EatStreet gobbled up $2 million in funding. EatStreet offers a similar service to well-known sites like Seamless and GrubHub, but distinguishes itself by focusing on smaller markets, outside of big cities. The marketplace gives local restaurants a way to enable online ordering. It has grown into 20 cities and over 1,000 restaurants and will use the capital to continue entering new markets. The round was led by Cornerstone Opportunity Partners and includes participation from Great Oaks VC, Independence Equity, and the Wisconsin-based accelerator generator.

Photo Credit: Hobbes vs Boyle/Flickr

Three years ago, I founded a tech startup investment firm to channel early stage capital toward quick-thinking entrepreneurs with a drive to succeed financially.

My mantra for investing: “Technology is cool — but generating revenue is even cooler.”

There are four considerations I research before deciding to fund a company: the business idea, the founder, the intelligence of the players, and the sustainability of a revenue channel.

Here’s a primer for new investors on each of those considerations and how you can use them to make smarter decisions and — with a little luck — more profitable investments.

Business idea

To me, the most important item to examine is the business idea itself. Simply put, every startup has to be a business. I have to be convinced this is a viable concept that can become a profitable business.

There are many of well-known founders with lengthy track records that attract investment regardless of the strength — or lack of strength — of their idea. I view it as a sign of arrogance that these entrepreneurs would seek funding with a lukewarm business idea.

If you do not have a solid startup business idea with a clear way to quickly generate revenue, you essentially have nothing to get off the ground.

Who is the founder?

My ideal founder not only thinks everything through but is also what I like to call a quick thinker.

Being a quick thinker doesn’t simply mean intelligence. It’s the ability to come up with solutions and to do so quickly. Having a successful startup requires fast execution, as well as fast reaction to unplanned changes, good and bad. Quick thinkers have a strong advantage.

I do not invest in what I call silver-spoon entrepreneurs. This is my term for an entrepreneur who is starting a company not because they need to but because they have a lot of money for one reason or another and they start companies simply because they can.

All of the founders I have invested in had a lot to lose by starting a company. This makes them hungry, which contributes to their drive to make the business a success. That’s not to say wealthy people don’t do well, but I need to see drive and dedication and the right motivation — no hobbyists for me.

Most people I have invested in have the same mentality, and I have heard it repeated by strong entrepreneurs: “If I can’t come up with an answer/idea/marketing plan/etc. within 30 minutes, it’s not going to come to me.”

Put simply: A startup founder should spend less time thinking and more time doing.

Great founders also have a killer instinct. Although it’s hard to describe what I’m looking for, you can see it in their eyes. They have a will to win, and they won’t accept no for an answer.

Finally, I only invest in founders that have the ability to manage all aspects of the business. Many startups I review are created by just one or two people who do not have the basic skills needed to run a small business. To run a company, you need to possess a basic understanding of accounting, a clear idea of the legal requirements of their market, a grasp of basic marketing and strong project management skills.

In these cases, important things slip through the cracks or founders on tight budgets are forced to overpay for services because they don’t bring the necessary skill to the table.

Smart players

I only invest in individuals that are smarter than me — and substantially so — in their chosen business. If I don’t come away feeling like I would be able to learn something from them about their company and industry, I don’t believe they will be worth of my investment.

Revenue sustainability

There is no point in investing in a company that cannot sustain itself financially by producing a great product and attracting customers. A business does not need to be revolutionary or even be an industry game-changer, but it does need to have a clear path to steady revenue.

I start with an idea, an objective like subscription, SaaS, or e-commerce business model. I then focus on how this business concept will make money and figure out every step to get there — and then I do it again, in reverse. I keep going back and forth through the thought process until the product in my head does not change. I would never say to myself, “We will figure out revenue later,” and I would never invest in a company or idea with that approach.

Not every business idea will succeed, and some companies, no matter how good they look, will fail. However, by examining these key factors up front, you will have a clearer understanding of your motivation for what to expect when investing what to expect and an idea of what lies ahead.

Dan Soha is president of Five Mill Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund and incubator based in San Francisco. The firm’s portfolio companies include contact management service Full Contact and green consumer-facing startup SimpleEnergy.

The venture capital firm announced today the closure of its tenth fund, which actually includes two funds that will be co-invested. Battery Ventures X (BVX) is a $650 million fund that will back companies at all stages of their lifecycle. The Battery Ventures X Side Fund will dedicate $250 million to companies further down the pipeline and support acquisitions, “providing the flexibility to support larger growth and buyout situations without disrupting the concentration in BV X,” the firm said in a statement.

Most of the resources will go into the North American, Israeli, and European markets. Battery Ventures will focus on companies working with software-as-a-service for the enterprise and big data analytics; IT infrastructure like networking and storage; technology-enabled business services; and buyouts in markets that are “ripe for consolidation.”

Since its formation in 1983, Battery Ventures has raised more than $4.5 billion and invested in more than 300 companies. In 2012, four of the firm’s portfolio companies went public — Bazaarvoice, ExactTarget, Guidewire, and Splunk — and nine portfolio companies were acquired. On Monday, financial analysis firm PrivCo released a report of the top 20 technology venture capital firms of 2012, ranking Battery Ventures at number six.

Battery Ventures has offices in Boston, Silicon Valley, and Israel.

Photo credit: eszter/Flickr

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Stormpath gives companies an easier way to authenticate users, with $8.2M

The idea of a “plug and play” security tool may seem a bit paradoxical, but one company doesn’t think so. Stormpath, an authentication app that just got $8.2 million in its first round of funding today, wants you to “plug in” its login tool, and let it do all the work as your company’s first line of defense. The funding was led by New Enterprise Associates and Pelion Venture Partners, with participation from Flybridge Capital Partners. Read more on VentureBeat.

Taboola spices up video advertising with $15M 

Taboola provides a video content recommendation platform. Its marketplace has marketers and brands on one side, who bid to distribute their content on top publisher sites, and algorithms on the other side, to match content with the most relevant users and predict what they want to watch. After experiencing significant growth in 2012, largely spurred by the $10 million round Taboola closed in June, this funding brings the total capital raised to $25 million. Israeli firm Pitango VC led the $15 million investment, with participation from existing investors Evergreen Venture Partners, WGI Group, and Market. Read more on VentureBeat.

Cmune raises funding for first-person shooters on mobile and Facebook

Cmune has raised a round of funding today to publish more games like its Uberstrike first-person shooter on digital platforms like Facebook. The Beijing-based company believes that social shooting games will overtake game consoles. DCM provided the funding, but it did not disclose the amount of the investment. Cmune recently announced that it was spreading beyond Facebook to GameStop’s Kongregate and is developing versions for iOS, Android, and other mobile devices. Read more on VentureBeat.

I don’t think you’re ready for this Celly — startup raises $1.4M to bring social networking to classrooms

Social media startup Celly has closed a $1.4 million round of funding today to enhance communication for smaller groups and organizations. Celly allows classrooms, government organizations, or other community groups to use a communications platform that cherry picks some of the best elements from Facebook and Twitter. The new funding round was led by Oregon Angel Fund (OAF) with participation from Upstart Labs, Portland Seed Fund, and others. Read more on VentureBeat.

‘Big data’ startup Sociocast conjures $1M, opens up ‘Prediction API’ to SMBs

“Big data” and analytics startup Sociocast has raised $1 million in new funding, which it will use hire new stuff and to beef up its flagship Prediction API product. The Prediction API claims to provide “an accuracy rate of four to seven times more precise than existing solutions, seamlessly handles unstructured data, such as URLs and text, and is flexible to handle customer-specific data schema.” The new funding round came from New York’s Raptor Ventures. Read more on VentureBeat. 

Talk may be cheap, expressing opinions online is worth millions

‘Global opinion network’ State has raised $14 million, according to a report in TechCrunch. State was started by Jawbone founder Alexander Asseily and seeks to combine elements of Wikipedia, Quora, and Twitter to create an online forum where anyone can express their opinion. State is still in stealth mode and will initiate beta testing later this year.  Investors include Niklas Zennstrom, Len Blavatnik, Richard Witten, Xavier Niel, Lord Mervyn Davis, Hoain Rahman, and Marc Simoncini.

Inverted Edge dives into fashion pool with $1.6M parachute

I did a lot of shopping while in Asia, and thus feel partially responsible for the fact that Inverted Edge has raised over $1.6 million. Inverted Edge is a global online fashion retailer based in Singapore that connects fashion designers in the Asia Pacific region to consumers. The platform offers small fashion retailers tools to expand their distribution, while also providing consumers with a curated ready-to-wear collection. It is one of the first startups to be funded by the Singapore National Research Foundation, incubator, Accel-Z Pte Ltd, and others.

Photo Credit: dizznan/Flickr

Online investment platform SecondMarket is partnering with CircleUp, a crowdfunding platform where accredited investors can make equity investments in up-and-coming consumer product businesses.

“For crowdfunding to work, it has to be done properly with expertise, curation, and due diligence,” said SecondMarket’s senior director of sales Bill Siegel in an interview. “CircleUp is vertically oriented in the consumer goods space and know how to find good deals. With this partnership, investors will have the opportunity to look at really unique niche brands, many in the artisanal food movement. The coolest part is investors can go to a store, eat and enjoy a product,  and think its awesome. Now they can go online and bet the rest of the country will enjoy it too, and that the business will grow and become profitable.”

CircleUp combines the popularity surrounding small-production, high-quality products with the momentum of crowdfunding. VentureBeat reported in January that the platform helped five food-related businesses raised over $5 million by connecting them with investors. By getting featured on the site, these companies were able to the small companies the capital they needed to expand their production and distribution. Products included healthy fruit snacks, granola, all-natural butter alternative spreads, and kale chips.

SecondMarket is a registered broker-dealer that connects investors with investments. While investors may be interested in backing consumer goods companies, they probably don’t have expertise in this field. The partnership with CircleUp will make it easier for investors to find promising opportunities, because they are only presented with a selection of vetted, curated businesses.

“Right now, CircleUp is fielding inquiries from tons of consumer goods companies,” said Siegel. “They know where to source these deals, whereas most people have no background in this. Generalist crowdfunding platforms wouldn’t know how to originate these types of transactions that only comes with industry specialization. The second part is diligence to ensure the companies can execute and scale.”

This partnership is part of SecondMarket’s ‘investment education months’ initiative, which is designed to educate the members about “under the radar” asset classes. SecondMarket provides educational tools such as webinars and white papers, and if interested, the investors have access to investment opportunities within those classes. February is “early stage consumer goods month.” Other themes include health and education.

When asked if SecondMarket would continue to form partnerships like these, Siegel said it would only be with platforms or programs that are similarly dedicated to a specific vertical. The idea is to create specialized “stores” to shop for investments. Like shopping at a boutique rather than Walmart.

Back in November, SecondMarket announced a one-of-a-kind partnership with AngelList, a network and subscriber-base of angel investors, to let accredited investors fund startups for as little as $1000. These strategic partnerships support SecondMarket’s efforts to sustainably build out both side of its marketplace.

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Persado gets $15M to bring science to marketing campaigns  

New York-based Persado wants to provide marketers with data to help them build a successful campaign or promotion. Today, the startup has pulled in $15 million in funding in a round led by Bain Capital Ventures to further build-out product that automatically selects and generates optimal marketing messages for its customers. Read more VentureBeat.

On Deck raises $42M to finance cash-strapped small businesses

On Deck, The online local lending company has raised $42 million in a series D funding round led by Institutional Venture Partners, which joins existing investors RRE Ventures, SAP Ventures and First Round Capital. On Deck offers short-term loans ranging from $5,000 to $150,000 to small businesses that need them. Read more on VentureBeat.

Cylance gets $15M to put a little more prevention into your security plan 

Security firm Cylance wants to put an end to reactionary security, and focus on the prevention of attacks. The company got $15 million in its first round of funding today led by storied venture capitalist Vinod Khosla. Fairhaven Capital also participated in this round. Cylance was started by former McAfee chief executive Stuart McClure in 2012 and has since been in stealth mode. Read more on VentureBeat. 

European VC spreads startup excitement from Berlin to beyond

Point Nine Capital announced its new $53.8M fund (€40M) to support early-stage European companies. The firm’s approach is to be “the angel VC.” The partners are focusing on mentoring entrepreneurs in areas such as Software-as-a-Service, eCommerce, marketplaces, and mobile. Read more on VentureBeat.

Lux Capital to invest $245M in ‘Big, Bold, Brave’ ideas

Lux Capital has closed Lux Ventures III, a $245 million fund with a focus on energy, technology, and healthcare sectors. The fund will make seed investments from $100,000 up to commitments of $15 million over a company’s life. This is Lux Capital’s largest fund to date and was oversubscribed- the initial goal was $200 million. Lux Ventures II was a $100 million fund that closed in 2007. Read more on VentureBeat.

Getonic gets on it with $1.3 million

Social shopping platform Getonic closed a $1.3 million round of funding to help businesses quickly and easily set up mini online shops. On the platform, users build POPshops that they can use promote their products or services on social media outlets, like Facebook or Twitter. This Israeli company took investment from Rutledge Vine Capital and angel investors. Read the press release.

GroupTalent groups together $1 million for TaaS

If you aren’t familiar with TaaS, don’t feel bad. I was not either. GroupTalent is a company that offers a ‘talent-as-a-service’ platform that matches product teams with technical talent based around interests and availability. Today, the company is announcing that it has raised $1 million in seed financing from Version One Ventures and Founders Co-op, with participation from Menlo Ventures. Read the press release.

Stealth cloud startup raises $4M seed round

BlueData Inc has closed $4 million in seed financing, according to an SEC filing. There is no information available on the site and the company has not yet responded to request for comment. What is known is that founder and CEO Kumar Sreekanti formerly worked at VMWare as the Vice President of R&D, in the cloud infrastructure business unit. Read the filing.

Bislr grabs $3.5M to help SMB simplify digital campaigns (because it’s hard)

Bislr, which launched its new marketing management platform today, has raised a new $3.5 million round of funding led by Southern Cross Venture Partners. Read more on VentureBeat.

Making decisions can be hard. I know, I am a Libra. Investors and entrepreneurs are both faced with making big decisions every single day. As for me, my choices are generally on a smaller scale. It isn’t “should I invest in this company” or “how much to invest at what valuation.” Rather, I deliberate over what to wear that day, if I should bike or walk to work, or whether I want brownies or ice cream for dessert. In the case of the last one, the answer is both.

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FreedomPop raises $4.3M more, expands ‘social broadband’ platform for free wireless

FreedomPop’s announced that it has raised an addition $4.3 million for its first round from existing investors DCM and Mangrove Capital, on top of the the $7.5 million it raised last year. FreedomPop offers wireless devices that offer a significant chunk of bandwidth for free, with the ability to earn even more free bandwidth by bringing on friends. Read more on VentureBeat.

Investors make a $27M bet in ad-tech startup DataXu 

DataXu pulled in $27 million in funding today, proving that investors continue to see potential in the massively complicated world of ad-tech. The round of funding was led by Thomvest Ventures with participation from existing investors Atlas Venture, Flybridge Capital Partners and Menlo Ventures. Read more on VentureBeat.

SoftBank Capital creates $250M fund to help startups break into Asia

SoftBank capital formed a new $250 million investment fund, the venture capital firm wants to make it easier for growth-stage companies to make headway in countries like China and Japan, which expansion is often tough. SoftBank is a Japanese company that has made investments in Buddy Media, OMGPOP, and Bluefin Labs, which was recently acquired by Twitter. Read more on VentureBeat. 

Spark Capital to close an oversubscribed $425M fund 

Spark Capital plans to close its oversubscribed $425 million fourth fund in two weeks, the firm revealed in a correction to a story published in Business Insider. Spark only announced it would be raising its fourth fund in December. The firm will invest in diverse market segments, including advertising, e-commerce, cloud computing and infrastructure, social, mobile and content. The firm’s best-known portfolio companies include hipster eyewear brand Warby Parker, Tumblr and Twitter. Read more on VentureBeat.

Seesaw launches to still the swings of indecision

Seesaw launched its mobile app today to help people make decisions like these.The iOS app connects people with their friends to ask for opinions and receive feedback. Seesaw is backed by $1.1 million in seed funding from Freestyle Capital, Baseline Ventures, and First Round Capital. Read more on VentureBeat. 

It’s time for MyTime 

MyTime launched today, backed by $3 million in venture funding from Mark Suster, Dave McClure, Brian Lee, Dvid Tisch, and Jason Calacanis, among others. MyTime is an online open appointment superstore that lets consumers in a city see all the open appointment times for specific services. The system is synced with the scheduling systems of local businesses and can process payments. The service launched in Los Angeles and has plans to expand. Read a blog post about the investment. 

Blazent blazes into $5M

IT Intelligence company Blazent raised $5 million in new funding, according to an SEC filing. Blazent provides IT executives with analytics and data solutions to provide an overview of the entire infrastructure. Investors listed on the filing include HighBAR Ventures and Walden Ventures. Read the SEC filing.

Alchemy API turns natural language processing into gold

AlchemyAPI provides a ‘cloud-based and on-premise’ text analysis infrastructure that make its easier to integrate natural language processing into an existing application. This text mining and big data analytics company has secured $2 million in financing to scale sits operations, expand sales, and develop new products. AlchemyAPI is based in Denver Colorado. Access Venture Partners led this round. Read the press release.

Nanosatisfi gets sent off towards stratosphere

Space imaging and data platform Nanosatisfi has raised $1.2 million in seed funding. The company seeks to offers affordable and convenient access to space, and the data collected has possible applications in science educate, weather analysis, and for governmental or military purposes. The new funds were raised using the AngelList/SecondMarket partnership.

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Ravello raises $26M to virtualize web development in prettier skies

Ravello Systems has raised $26 million from Sequoia Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, and Bessemer Venture Partners to launch its Cloud Application Hypervisor. The technology helps developers overcome their “internal resource constraints” by replicating their existing applications in a public cloud environment. From there, they can collaborate on projects, create blueprints, make changes, and QA test more efficiently. Read more on VentureBeat.

Readying for IPO, app monitoring all-star New Relic nets $80M from Insight, T. Rowe Price,

Application monitoring business New Relic has raised $80 million in fresh funding on a valuation of $750 million, cash that will help it grow and secure its place alongside other sexy enterprise startups like Box and Palantir. New Relic offers companies a SaaS-based dashboard for monitoring and managing their cloud, web, and mobile applications. The new funding was led by Insight Venture Partners with support by new investors T. Rowe Price, Dragoneer Investment Group, and Passport Ventures. Existing investors including Benchmark Capital, Trinity Ventures, Tenaya Capital, and Allen & Company also participated. Including the new round, New Relic has raised $115 million. Read more on VentureBeat.

Securing source code: Whitehat Security gets $31M to watch over your web apps

Whitehat, which claims to be the first software-as-a-service option for application security, raised $31 million fourth round of funding today. The company’s product, Sentinel Services, monitors your web applications and source code continuously to spot vulnerabilities and tell you where they are. The funding was led by JMI Equity, with participation from existing investor IGC (Investor Capital Group). Today’s funding brings the company’s total to $53 million. Read more on VentureBeat.

Social media management startup Sprinklr grabs $15M from Intel; Battery to outclass Radian6

Social media management startup Sprinklr has raised $15 million in second-round funding to help it continue to dominate in the social management space and keep an edge over services like Radian6, Wildfire, and Involver. Sprinklr offers these high-profile clients a full suite of social media management tools to help them post across social networks and measure engagement. The new round of funding came from heavy hitting investors Intel Capital and Battery Ventures. Including the new round, Sprinklr has raised $20 million. Read more on VentureBeat.

Hailo confirms its $30M round from Union Square Ventures, Richard Branson

London-based taxi app Hailo confirmed today that investors pumped $30.6 million into the company. The round was, as reported, led by Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson with participation from Virgin founder and billionaire Richard Branson, and Japanese telecommunications provider KDDI. Hailo will also be launching soon in Tokyo. The funding round sets up Hailo as a main competitor for Uber in New York City. Hailo brought on $20 million in funding prior to this round. Investors include Accel Partners, Wellington Partners, and Atomico Ventures. The company also brought on former Starbucks vice president Tom Barr to run its operations. Read more on VentureBeat.

Accel’s latest European fund rumored at $450M

Accel Partners is raising a $450 million fund focused on Europe, as reported this morning by Bloomberg. Accel London IV will be dedicated to companies in the IT, software, internet and consumers sectors, with three-quarters allocated to early-stage companies and the remainder for later-stage deals. According to unnamed source, eighty percent of the pool will be invested in Europe and Israel, and the rest in the U.S. Read more on VentureBeat.

Pinterest’s next funding round could be valued as high $2.5 billion

Pinterest, everyone’s mom’s favorite web diversion, is in talks to raise a meaty financing round valued up to $2.5 billion, sources tell The Wall Street Journal. The talks are still in the early stages, but the deal would be a major addition to the $138 million Pinterest has raised so far. Its most recent round came last May, when Japanese e-commerce site Rakuten helped it raise $100 million. Read more on VentureBeat.

Investors spread out $18M across Spredfast

Social marketing software provider Spredfast raised $18 million from OpenView Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors Austin Ventures and InterWest Partners. Spredfast reports that its revenue grew by 400% in 2012 and this capital will support product development, as well as grow the team. Spredfast’s Social Engagement Index helps enterprises manage their social actiivty, across multiple platforms and accounts, from one central place. Spredfast is based in Austin, Texas and has raised $31.6 million to date. Read the press release.

Think Big Analytics nabs $3M to help you with Hadoop 

After three years operating under the radar, Think Big Analytics is ready for its big debut. The Mountain View Calif. based startup leverages open source computing framework Hadoop and NoSQL to bring “big data” to large companies. To bring its product to market, the founding team has raised a massive $3 million seed round from former Cisco executive, Dan Scheinman, with participation from the venture firm WI Harper Group. Read more on VentureBeat.

Ribbon wraps itself up in investment dollars

Payments startup Ribbon secured a $1.6 million seed round from Draper Associates with participation from Siemer Ventures, Naguib Sawiris, Winston Ibrahim, Emil Michael, and MicroVentures. Ribbon grew out of the AngelPad accelerator to make selling across multiple platforms “as easy as copy/paste.” By embedding one link, merchants can sell directly to consumers on their site or social networks. The platform enables credit card transactions within the Facebook newsfeed, on Twitter, and on top of YouTube videos. Read the company’s blog post.

Investors keep Coalfire burning

IT governance, risk, and compliance firm Coalfire closed a $3.6 million round of venture funding from Baird Capital. Coalfire provides independent IT audit, risk assessment, and compliance management solutions to clients in multiple industries to protect their sensitive data and critical systems. This is its second round of venture funding, following a year of strong growth and expansion of its healthcare practice. Coalfire is based in Colorado and has raised a total of $8.6 million to date. Read the press release.

Pinterest-for-dudes site pins up seed funding

Male-orietned, social discovery site Tapiture closed $825K to advance its growth. The technology pairs users’ social and interest graphs to deliver content that might interest them, and will soon be adding an e-commerce platform. The funding came from private angel investors. Read the press release.

Israel stays trendy with equity crowdfunding platform of its own

Crowdfunding is hitting Israel too. OurCrowd, an equity crowd funding platform for accredited investors interested in Israeli startups, closed $5.5 million in its first round of funding. To date, OurCrowd has raised money for 12 for companies on the platform, with an average deal size of $500,000. The first deals completed on the site so far include:

• AbesMarket.com – The Leading Organic E-Commerce Site, co-investment with Accel Partners, Index, and Carmel Ventures.
• Sherpa – The new internet information venture from Bob Rosenschein, founder and CEO of Answers.com (sold to Summit Partner’s AFCV Holdings for $127 million), co-investment with Cedar.
• TradeOS – The new freight forwarding automation venture from Zvi Schreiber, the founder and CEO of Tradeum.com. (sold to Vertical Net for $450 million).
• Parko – launching a unique social parking solution and recently won the Israel Mobile Challenge Competition sponsored  by Google.
• Fireblade – leading company for protecting websites from malicious bots and scraping, co-investment with Jeffrey Citron’s (founder of Vonage) KEC Holdings.
• Consumer Physics – building a pocket spectrometer for smart phones, enabling a variety of consumer apps, co-investment with Khosla Ventures.

“Most things fail,” the influential and opinionated angel investor said on stage.

“The primary reason most startups fail is lack of customer acquisition at reasonable economics,” McClure continued. “There are a lot of other reasons. You might be stupid or foolish or might be unable to lead or hire or not wake up early enough, but it is likely if you are not an idiot, you will be able to get a product out the door.

“For most of the startups in the room, you are going to fucking fail.”

McClure said these words of profane wisdom in a presentation titled “Why Incubators Hate Your Startup” during Startup Grind, a conference for entrepreneurs. The word “hate” should have signaled that the talk wouldn’t be all sunshine and roses, but McClure drove home his oft-repeated point that it’s a far better thing to groom ugly ducklings than farm black swans.

McClure is known for being an iconoclastic figure even in a community filled with iconoclasts. His investment strategy is to make a large number of small investments, both inside and outside of his incubator program. He is also “bullish” on developing markets in Asia and Latin America, and today the 10 startups participating in the Mexico City accelerator program are presenting in Mountain View.

These are rather unusual words from a mentor figure, but perhaps it is a needed dose of reality. The fact is that many startups do fail, some yield small returns, and a few succeed. For 500 Startups, McClure cites these as Wildfire, which Google acquired for $350M in 2012, and TaskRabbit, which is valued at more than $100 million. Despite these odds, the wins are big wins, and McClure said that the Wildfire exit provided a 15X return that essentially paid for an entire 500 Startups class.

Which brings us to tomorrow’s demo day.

Just down the road in Mountain View, the 33 companies that participated in this fifth incubator batch will present to a room filled with investors (and a few journalists). The class is diverse, with over 57 percent based outside of the U.S. and around one-fifth containing a female founder. McClure anticipates that one-third of these companies will raise a million or more, one-third will raise $500,000 or more, and one-third will raise 250,000 or less. He said one company has already quit, and a couple “probably won’t raise enough capital to stay open much longer.”

The valuations will mostly price around $5 or $6 million, and the startups will have enough runway to operate for the next six to 18 months until the next milestone. McClure advises his portfolio companies to raise 50 percent more capital than they need and advises against raising as much money as possible as a “badge of honor.”

When pitching McClure, the first step is prove that you aren’t “fucking stupid or crazy.” From there, entrepreneurs need to display a functional product that was built with the consumer in mind.

“A lot of venture capital filtering is risk reduction through network,” he said. “A lot of people will start to pitch me and ask why they need to go through a network? I can’t identify in 30 seconds if you are fucking crazy or an idiot or something else, not that I am not.”

On Jan. 31, the incubator began accepting applications for its 2013 spring batch, requiring companies to apply via AngelList. McClure told the audience at Startup Grind that he is “materially involved in AngelList” and that all entrepreneurs, whether they are raising money or not, should have a profile in the network. 500 Startups first experimented with AngelList applications for its last batch of companies, and the partners were so impressed with the results that they made it the new standard.

500 Startups has invested in about 400 startups in the past three years, and McClure anticipates reaching the “500″ goal in the next year or two. Stay tuned tomorrow for live coverage from the demo day in Mountain View.

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Truphone gets $118M to bring low-cost phone calls to the whole world

UK-based mobile network Truphone has raised $118 million in a massive funding round led by Russian business tycoon Roman Abramovich. Via its service, Truphone allows customers to make calls at standard local rates wherever Truphone has deals with local operators.The service essentially makes every phone call a local one. This funding will expand its business to Hong Kong, Poland, Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands. Read more on VentureBeat.

“Leader in gamfying personalization” gets financial leg-up 

nFluence takes the ‘i’ out of influence and $1.6 million into marketing technology. Consumers create an “interest graph” by sorting brands and nFluence’s software creates an “Advertar” that brands can use to assess potential consumers and provide more targeted advertising. Current investors Alliance of Angels and Voyager Capital added this follow-on funding to nFluence’s existing pool of $3 million. nFluence has offices in Seattle and London.

Rivet & Sway unveils new funding and Valentine’s Day eyewear

The cool kids always have people follow their example. So I hear. I wasn’t one of them. At any rate, Rivet & Sway has received $2 million to grow its online eyewear boutique that looks a lot like Warby Parker. Rivet & Sway sells women’s prescription glasses for $199 a pair. Shoppers get three free home try-ons and a free personal stylist consultation. Mousese Partners led the investment, with participation from Baseline Ventures and Harrison Metal. This Seattle, Wash.-based startup has raised $3.3 million to date.

Smart thermostat maker Nest reportedly raises $80M with $800M valuation

Following strong momentum, smart thermostat startup Nest Labs has raised $80 million in new funding, with a valuation of $800 million, according to a GigaOM report. Palo Alto, Calif.-based Nest Labs attracted a lot of attention in 2012 and launched the second-generation of its smart thermostat back in October. That model is slimmer and offers compatibility with 95 percent of low-voltage heating and cooling systems in the U.S. Google Ventures reportedly led the new round of funding, while Venrock participated as a new investor. In the past, Nest has raised “tens of millions” but hasn’t specified exactly how much. Previous investors include Kleiner Perkins, Generation Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Shasta Ventures. Read more on VentureBeat.

Health startup raises $11M to offer coupons for caramels

Linkwell Health pulled in $11 million to expand its health platform that brings together insurance plans, brands, and retailers to encourage healthier living. Linkwell has partnered with twenty-two insurance providers and big name brands to deliver coupons for “better-for-you” products to members of the network. This third round of funding will bring additional health plans, brands, and retailers onto the platform. Health benefits company WellPoint led this investment, with participation from existing investors Spark Capital and HLM Venture Partners. Mass.-based Linkwell has raised $27.3 million to date. Read more on VentureBeat.

Tomfoolery peeks out of stealth mode to announce all-star investors

A stealth startup called Tomfoolery closed a $1.7 million seed round to make work “awesome.” It does this by developing user-friendly mobile enterprise applications that are as easy and enjoyable to use as many consumer-facing applications. Investors include big names like Ash Patel of Morado Venture Partners, Sam Pullara from Sutter Hill Ventures, Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang through AME Cloud Ventures, Andresseen Horowitz, YouSendIt CEO Brad Garlinghouse, and Tech Stars NY cofounder David Tisch. Read more on VentureBeat.

FlexMinder wraps its mind and money around healthcare reimbursement

Digital health startup FlexMinder closed a double A round of financing. The company simplifies the reimbursement process for Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) healthcare claims by aggregating an individual’s healthcare information from multiple sources and automating the returns. With this $1.4 million from WRF Capital, Founder’s Co-op and other angel investors., FlexMinder will continue working on product development and build out its sales, marketing, and client services teams. The company is based in Seattle and graduated rom TechStars in 2011.

Lyft reportedly raises $15M for send pink mustaches nationwide

Lyft parent company Zimride has allegedly closed $15 million in new funding, according to a report in TechCrunch from unnamed sources. This news comes hot on the heels of Lyft’s victory against the California Public Utilities Commission and expansion into Seattle and L.A.. The money will help expand Lyft’s peer-to-peer ride sharing service nationwide and take on competitors like SideCar and Uber, which are both backed by hefty amount of venture capital. This second round, which would bring Zimride’s total to $21 million, was led by Founders Fund with participation from existing investors Mayfield Fund, K9 Ventures, and Floodgate.

Toopher $2M funding gives location-based two factor authentication a boost

Toopher’s founders Josh Alexander and Evan Grim are just as scared of the password as the rest of the security industry. It’s a weak form of protection that has been around since the dawn of the Internet — and has been barely changed since. Two-factor authentication helps passwords out by making people “prove” they are who they say they are through entering a code supposedly only accessible by the account owner. Toopher, which got $2 million in funding today, helps people authenticate not through using a code, but rather, though the GPS on their phones.

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Ahead of House of Cards premiere, Netflix asks investors to fund new original content

In a letter to investors today, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings asked investors to finance $400 million (PDF), which the company intends to use for refinance existing notes ($225 million) and other “general corporate purposes.” Netflix’s confidence comes a week after the company’s Q4 earnings exceeded expectations and pushed its stock price up significantly. Even after asking for the new investment, Netflix’s stock closed at 169.12 for the day. Read more on VentureBeat. Read more on VentureBeat.  

DataGravity lands $30M to turn ‘data into information’

DataGravity, a startup that won’t release a product until 2014, today pulled in an additional $30 million from Silicon Valley venture capital firms. This second round of funding brings its total to $42 million, and it should help it realize its vision to sell “big data” tools to mid-size companies that can’t afford to hire a data scientist or data services team. Andreessen Horowitz led this funding round, with participation from existing investors Charles River Ventures and General Catalyst Partners. Andreessen is betting big on big data and has already made investments in GoodData and Continuuity. Read more on VentureBeat.

Cloud call center biz NewVoiceMedia sings its way to $20M in new funds

Cloud call-center startup NewVoiceMedia has raised $20 million in its second round of funding, money that should help it bring its telephony solutions to more customers in the United States and develop new products. U.K.-based NewVoiceMedia offers its ContactWorld platform to help companies set up cloud contact centers. It serves 8,000 customers in 30 countries, including Parcelforce, PhotoBox, QlikTech, SHL, Berry Bros & Rudd, and Long Tall Sally. Highland Capital Partners and MMC led this new round, with participation from existing investors Eden Ventures and Notion Capital. Including the new funding, NewVoiceMedia has raised $26.3 million. Read more on VentureBeat.

Houzz raises $35M to inspire better homes and gardens

Houzz, a platform for home remodeling and design, has raised $35 million. More than 12 million homeowners, home improvement professionals, and design enthusiasts come together on the site to find inspiration, tips, and resources and collaborate on projects. Along with the funding, Houzz also announced the launch of Houzz Pro+, a local marketing program for remodeling and design professionals. This is Houzz’s third round of investment. New Enterprise Associates and GGV Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital which led the Series B in December 2011. Comcast Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Yammer found David Saks also participated. Read more on VentureBeat.

Box’s fifth funding round swells to $150M 

As if $125 million were not enough, Box has expanded its gargantuan funding round to $150 million, according to an SEC filing. A company spokesperson said this will allow existing investors to “make additional investments.” The cloud storage startup had not filed the paperwork for its fifth funding round until today – although the news was announced in late July. The previous round was led by General Atlantic with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, DFJ Growth, New Enterprise Associates, SAP Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, and new investor Social+Capital Partnership. Read more on VentureBeat. 

WatchDox raises $12M to guard documents from intruders

WatchDox has raised $12 million to keep enterprise documents protected as they are shared on the go. Its ‘document-centric’ solutions ensure critical and sensitive documents are accessible and can be used collaboratively, while also upholding their security. This round of financing will help WatchDox expand its footprint in other sectors and supported the acquisition of InstallFree in December, a developer of technology that makes applications accessible across devices. Millennium Technology Value Partners, which provides “alternate liquidity solutions” participated in this round, along with existing investors Blackstone, Gemini Israel Funds, Shasta Ventures, and cofounder of Check Point and Imperva Shlomo Kramer. Read more on VentureBeat.

Ringadoc adds $1.2M into doctors bag to improve patient communication

Doctors on demand startup Ringadoc raised $1.2 million in seed money, led by Founders Fund. The company connects doctors to patients on the phone and through its website, no appointment needed. Doctors can triage patient calls using their smartphones at times convenient to them which cuts down on unreturned calls, frustrated pateietns, and overworked doctors. The platform launched in beta in August and now reaches more than 500,000 patients in 20 states. This follow-on financing adds to the $750K Ringadoc raised from Founders Fund last June.

SimilarGroup takes new funding to take on Alexa

SimilarGroup has closed $2.5 million in new financing for branded browser plugins, as reported by TechCrunch. These plugins help people and businesses discover relevant content on the web by providing suggestions of interesting websites, based on what sites they are already surfing. The company’s combined suite of plugins have been downloaded tens of millions of times. Moshe Lichtman, the former President of Microsoft’s Israel R&D Center, led this round which brings its total of $3.5 million. SimilarGroup is based in Tel Aviv.

Pluto wins $500K for piano playing

Tablet ed-tech company Pluto Media raised $500K to expand its award-winning app, Pluto Learns Piano. This children’s game gets kids excited about learning music. They play on the multi-touch computer screen and are rewarded for their performance with stars that lets them unlock new songs. Accel Partners led this additional seed funding, along with strategic investors Learn Capital and others.

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You got questions? ChaCha’s got $14M and answers

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it’s what keeps ChaCha chugging along. This human powered Q&A service, in which humans answer other humans’ questions in real time, has raised a new round of $14 million. This is its seventh round of institutional funding since it was founded in 2006. This investment came from VantagePoint Capital Partners, Rho Ventures, and Qualcomm. Previous investors include Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Morton Meyerson. ChaCha has raised a total of $82 million to date. Read more on VentureBeat.

Seagate dumps $40M into Flash-storage startup Virident

Today, hard drive giant Seagate announced it’s investing a huge $40 million chunk of change in Virident, a startup focused on Flash storage. A rep for the companies said via email that as of the deal’s announcement, Seagate will immediately start selling a complete line of Flash-based technologies to its other partners (including OEMs), and Virident will be using Seagate’s ample marketing and distribution channels. Both companies will collaborate on next-gen hardware and software designs. Virident, based in Milpitas, Calif., was founded in 2006. To date, the company has taken $103.7 million in four rounds of institutional funding. Previous investors include Sequoia Capital, Intel, and Cisco. Read more on VentureBeat.

SALT sprinkles $2 million to flavor up its payments platform

Payments startup SALT Technology has received $2 million in its first round of financing. Its platform enables carriers, banks, and merchants to quickly set up secure mobile payments, including branded mobile wallets, QR-codes, and Near Field Communication, or peer-to-peer systems. SALT did not reveal the investors, although it claims it is an “impressive list of private investors formerly from organizations including Apple and PayPal.” Read the press release. 

FarmLogs yields $1M in seed funding

FarmLogs is a Y Combinator alum that seeks to modernize the farming industry.  FarmLogs’ software helps farmers manage their farm. Today, the company based out of Ann Arbor, Mich., announced it’s harvesting $1 million in seed funding, which is led by Huron River Ventures and Hyde Park Ventures. With this investment, FarmLogs will expand its team of four and accelerate development of mobile applications for the 2013 planting season. Read more on VentureBeat.

Photo Courtesy of Flickr user NRK P3. 

Today, hard drive giant Seagate announced it’s investing a huge $40 million chunk of change in Virident, a startup focused on Flash storage.

With the investment, Seagate will buy itself a board seat as well as the advantages of a “strategic partnership” with the younger company.

A rep for the companies said via email that as of the deal’s announcement, Seagate will immediately start selling a complete line of Flash-based technologies to its other partners (including OEMs), and Virident will be using Seagate’s ample marketing and distribution channels. Both companies will collaborate on next-gen hardware and software designs.

“This partnership validates Virident’s vision of pervasive flash in the performance tier and accelerates our shared vision by bringing next-generation SCM solutions to the enterprise and web datacenters worldwide.” said Virident CEO Mike Gustafson in a statement on the news.

Seagate’s heavy investment in Flash storage was also made evident in last year’s acquisition of LaCie (a French storage-focused company) and its investment in DensBits, an Israeli company that makes “Memory Modem, a revolutionary technology created to address the ever-increasing need for low-cost, high-performance NAND Flash-based storage systems.”

Virident, based in Milpitas, Calif., was founded in 2006. To date, the company has taken $103.7 million in four rounds of institutional funding. Previous investors include Sequoia Capital, Intel, and Cisco.

For more funding news as it happens, subscribe to our Deals Channel feed. You can also follow VentureBeat on Twitter, @venturebeat, to view funding news as it’s published.

WizIQ moves to head of the class with new funding

Online educational platform WizIQ has raised $4 million in its second round of investment. WizIQ provides virtual classroom software that connects teachers with students around the world. There are tools to create, manage, and deliver live courses online, as well as for organizations to deploy full training programs. WizIQ takes care of the hosting and IT so the educators don’t have to. It currently has over 200,000 teachers and 2.5 million learners on board. India’s first education-focused private equity fund Kaizen led this round, alone with Bertelsmann, a global media company based in Germany. Read the press release.

Restaurants: YOLO, use OLO

Chances are if a customer chooses to order food instead of prepare it themselves, convenience is a priority. OLO’s platform provides restaurants with web and mobile ordering capabilities so they can offer their customers the most convenient experience possible. The software quickly sets up order and payment processing for restaurants, but still allows them to maintain independent relationships with their customers. Clients include Five Guys burger chain, Cold Stone Creamery, Sonic, Subway, La Boulange, and that list is growing. This was a strategic investment led by PayPal, which made a strong push this year to penetrate its payment services into the offline world. Exisitng investors David Frankel, RRE Ventures, and Core Capital Partners also participated in this $5 million round, which brings OLO’s total capital raised to $13.75 million.

Distil.it boils down $1.8 million into website protection

Depending on how you look at it, distilling can lead to a lack of security. Distillation leads to whisky leads to compromised judgement and defense mechanisms. However, a team working out of Arlington, Virginia. has a different take. Security startup Distil.it serves as a cloud-based “intelligent gatekeeper” for the enterprise. Its Content Protection Network halts web scraping, content theft, competitive data mining, and malicious bots attacks to keep websites performing at a high level. Distil.it announced today that it will secured $1.8 million led by ff Venture Capital, with participation from Correlation Ventures, Idea Fund Partners, CIT, Piedmont RIA, Cloud Power Fund, and TechStars.

Ed tech company KnowRe gets smart with $1.4 million

The “who, what, where, when, why, and how” are important questions to consider when writing a news article, planning an event, and studying math. KnowRe has an adaptive learning product that assesses each student’s strengths and weaknesses, personalizes a curriculum for their focus areas, and engages the students with game features, graphics, and social learning. The founding team previously worked as math instructors and ran a math academy in Seoul, South Korea. They applied their expertise to “digitalize our offline methodology” and put the kind of personalized attention of offline educational environments online. SoftBank Ventures Korea led this investment, which comes shortly after KnowRe was awarded the grand prize at Global K-Startup. KnowRe is based in New York, and participated in the first class of SparkLabs, an accelerator supporting Korean entrepreneurs outside of Korea.

Healthcare software biz Recondo Technology grabs $20M from Bregal Sagemount

Healthcare software and cloud solutions company Recondo Technology has received a $20 million investment from Bregal Sagemount to accelerate its growth in the booming healthcare sector. Greenwood Village, Co.-based Recondo Technology provides all kinds of software and services, including payments, insurance verification, and revenue recovery, to more than 450 U.S. hospitals. The investment will be used to expand sales and marketing efforts, improve customer service, and broaden product offerings. Read more on VentureBeat.

Pinterest sees $30M from SV Angel in secondary sale

SV Angel has raised $30 million to purchase shares of the popular online pinboard social network Pinterest from current investors, SV Angel’s David Lee confirmed to VentureBeat today. The money, which was raised by SV Angel last week according to an SEC filing, will be used to purchase secondary sales of Pinterest at 2 percent of the startup’s current $1.5 billion valuation. This Pinterest secondary sale will also be independent from the $40 million “SV Angel IV“ fund the group raised back in August. SV Angel, Ron Conway and Lee’s investment firm, has previously invested in Pinterest as well as many other notable startups, including Square, Twitter, Airbnb, Foursquare, and others. Read more on VentureBeat.

Don’t mess with AppNexus: Ad tech company puts $75M in its holster

The biggest, baddest ad tech company to roll into town today is AppNexus, which announced raising $75 million in its fourth round of funding. AppNexus provides a flexible and customizable ad tech platform that businesses can use to build a differentiated ad network, trading desk, or custom exchange. This round was led by Technology Crossover Ventures. Venrock and Tribeca Venture Partners also participated in this round. It brings AppNexus’ total funding to $140.5 million. Previous investors include an elite group of First Round Capital, Marc Andresseen and Ben Horowtiz, Ron Conway, and Khosla Ventures. Read more on VentureBeat.

Spikes sticks up with $1 million in seed

Browser security startup Spikes has secured $1 million in seed financing. Spikes was founded by Branden Spikes, the former CIO of PayPal and SpaceX who founded his own company in April of 2012. The company graduated from the Silicon Valley Founder Institute and won the 12th Founder Showcase pitch competition. It seeks to address the “top security threat of 2013″ by making it more difficult to hack into web browsers. Jed Katz of Javelin Venture Partners led this round. Read the announcement.

Who says following the rules can’t be fun? True Office. 

You can gamify anything these days. True Office, which gamifies regulatory and compliance training, has raised $3 million. All businesses need to make sure their operations are in line with policies and laws, but there are so many, it is not a simple thing to do. True Office attempts to make this challenge more fun, as well as effective. For this, Rho Ventures, Partnership for New York City Fund, and Contour Venture Partners pulled out their check books. True Office participated in the 2012 FinTech Innovation Lab and is based in New York City, with offices in Boston. Read the press release.

YC health startup closes seed round to assess patient eligibility (not for dating)

Health startup eligible is proving itself an extremely eligible for investment. This startup which graduated from Y-Combinator’s Summer 2012 class has pulled in a total of $2 million in seed funding. Eligible’s API makes it easier for medical practitioners and insurance companies to assess patient eligibility. As it stands, this is an arduous process. This technology makes it much easier, and it already processing more than 10,000 transactions per day for major health partners like ZocDoc, Cathay Health, Kareo.com, Nevada Medicare, and Passport Health Communications. A majority of this investment was raised on AngelList, through the new “online fundraising” feature. Investors include SV Angel’s David Lee, Andreessen Horowitz, and strategic investors. Read more on VentureBeat. 

* Updated at 3:20 p.m. with confirmation from SV Angel and clarification of what the fund will be used for.

SV Angel has raised $30 million fund to purchase shares of the popular online pinboard social network Pinterest from current investors, SV Angel’s David Lee confirmed to VentureBeat today.

Money from the fund, confirmed in an SEC filing last week, is part of  Special Purpose Vehicle that will be used to purchase secondary sales of Pinterest at 2 percent of the startup’s current $1.5 billion valuation, reports TechCrunch, who first reported the news.

The new fund is also independent from the $40 million “SV Angel IV“ fund the group raised back in August.

SV Angel, Ron Conway and Lee’s investment firm, has previously invested in Pinterest as well as many other notable startups, including Square, Twitter, Airbnb, Foursquare, and others.

Money photo via DenisNata/Shutterstock